The Secret to a Flawless Kip: When, Where & for How Long?
Tune into plenty of performance experts, and it’s easy to convince yourself that napping is a superpower: rather than a band-aid following restless night, but a path towards a better memory, a brighter outlook and perhaps improved athletic performance. Elite soccer players are all at it – as do concert pianists, mixed martial artists and high-profile executives. But if you lack a room for napping or employment that permits frequent naps, is it *truly* sufficient advantages to a short sleep for it to be worth the kerfuffle? Does there exist a dependable method to fall asleep fast? And can you honestly promise you will arise feeling better, instead of groggy?
Understanding The Nap Motivation
“We can identify three primary motivations for taking a nap in the adult population,” explains an expert circadian rhythm specialist. “One is termed recovery napping, which is what happens after experiencing a lack of sleep the night before. The second is prophylactic napping, which involves preparing for sleep loss coming up, for instance when working on night shifts. Finally, there's “hedonic napping”, which essentially boils down to desire: you get a chance to nap in the daytime, and it feels nice to do it.”
The first thing to consider, so, is to examine your reason for napping. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when overnight rest gets interrupted due to causes outside your control – for instance, when you are a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing from sickness or strenuous activity,” explains a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you nap since your night sleep feels fragile or poor, that is frequently a signal your body's sleep pressure is not as strong as it needs to be. In such situations, naps can become part of the issue, rather than the answer. Utilize daytime sleep for brief periods to address immediate needs – the priority must always be a strong and predictable overnight rest.”
The Ideal Snooze Time
This means that napping ought not to be sufficiently lengthy to affect your overnight rest, and ideally are not recommended after about 3pm (contingent on when you retire in the evening). What's a reasonable length? Recommendations vary. Among the most-cited studies about napping, experts noted that crew members had improvements of over 50% in alertness and a 34% increase in task performance after a 26-minute nap (technically, this included a six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – most people are asleep within 10 minutes,” notes a sleep expert. “There is plenty of advice around about the perfect length for sleeping, but that tends to make people feel more anxious than anything else – and the least helpful action you can do when attempting to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
If you’re going to nap for a longer period, bypass the 45 to 60 minute range that encourages sleep inertia, that spaced-out feeling when you wake. “Studies suggests it’s better to opt for a longer nap of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” says the professor. “Forty-five minutes is sufficient to plunge you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel sluggish when you wake up – whereas if you take it a bit longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to finish a full cycle and should get up feeling more refreshed. But if you’re sleeping for a long period, it may impact the quality of your sleep later that night.”
Establishing an Ideal Snooze Setting
When it comes to specific techniques, suggestions are diverse. A few professionals suggest employing the same protocol you’d use to foster quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and as much darkness as you can manage. Alternatively, experts propose that you should merely snooze on the sofa in whatever light happens to be around – both to discourage that groggy feeling and to “protect” your bedroom as the environment your brain links with *real* sleep. “Falling asleep is quite challenging to will,” notes an expert. “If you don’t have any drowsiness, it is tougher to lie down and basically instruct yourself to nod off. There must be some sleep pressure there to bring the sleep on initially. Personally, I can often nap in full light and wake up naturally alarm-free, though, what aids most folks is to anticipate a time where they feel naturally somewhat sleepy and then simply relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and when your choices are limited – for instance, if attempting to fit in a quick nap during a commute or in a soundproof office pod – it is perfectly fine with bringing a few tools. “When I’m working with footballers, I recommend that they avoid becoming accustomed to their own bed for naps, as they’re going to have|they will
